Tunnel Vision by Jimmy Thomson

Publisher's Synopsis

Chaos seems to follow Danny and Zan. After narrowly avoiding a sticky end in Los Angeles, they escape to Vietnam to help out an old army mate of Danny’s and explore a new TV-writing project. But soon they become entangled in a web of mysteries: their friend is being poisoned, a government official’s daughter has disappeared, a mysterious body has been found in a canal, and there’s a bloodthirsty sun bear somewhere in the city. It all seems to revolve around one powerful man, and he has Danny and Zan in his sights. They’ve got to get on the front foot if they’re going to walk out of this mess.

Tunnel Vision sees fever-pitched adventure collide with sharply witty, pacey dialogue as Danny Clay and his (almost) faithful sidekick navigate the corrupt world lurking beneath Saigon’s crowded streets.

My Review 

Tunnel Vision is the sequel to the first Danny Clay caper, Perfect Criminals. It almost directly follows on from the events of the first book, but the action has shifted from Los Angeles to Vietnam. Due to how closely the second book follows the first, you would get more out of the story by reading them in order.

As with the previous book, Tunnel Vision is stacked with offbeat scenarios that sit just this side of believable while Danny and his partner and erstwhile neighbour Zan go about acting like investigators for friends and acquaintances alike.

Danny and Zan have hit Vietnam, ostensibly, to help out an old mate of Danny’s who fears he has been poisoned by his wife. Danny’s role is to find out whether it’s true and, if not, work out who wants him dead.

But things start to go haywire as a number of unrelated, but somehow intertwined things happen.

The body of a woman is pulled from a canal and it’s clear she has been mauled by a sun bear; a local government official’s daughter has gone missing; Danny has a great idea for a movie about the tunnel rats from the war, an idea that is disastrously pitched to aforementioned government official. And a name keeps cropping up, Colonel Ngu, a particularly powerful and totally corrupt man who is somehow controlling the whole show.

Tunnel Vision is an honest-to-goodness caper by virtue of the brisk pace in which the various storylines start, develop and gradually draw together to meet at Danny.

Even though the tone is rather light, there is an undercurrent or danger running through each plotline. The spectre of Ngu looms over Danny, Zan, the local police force and the missing daughter. This provides a much-needed injection of jeopardy to remind us that there is some serious detective work required by the lead pair.

To be fair, both Danny and Zan do some solid detective work throughout the book. From planting bugs and hidden cameras to identifying fraudsters and bringing down a Sydney massage parlour, there are quite a few high points in the story.

While it’s not exactly the “hilarious” tale billed on the front cover, Tunnel Vision enjoys a quirky humour that keeps it consistently entertaining. I would compare it with Donald Westlake’s Dortmunder series for the farcical situations that come up and the ingenious ways in which the resulting problems are solved.

All in all, Tunnel Vision works very nicely as a fast-paced, humorous mystery. The setting of contemporary Vietnam is inspired and navigating those sometimes dangerous waters is handled with a delicately adept hand.